


turn around

by DaughteroftheCosmos



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Implied Sexual Content, Kinda?, Other, POV Second Person, POV Zolf Smith, Storms, idk zolf is just an angsty boy, kinda? it can be read that way or not so ill tag it to be safe, plz let me know if i should tag anything else i am horrible at tags, set sometime after paris arc, so dont read if u havent listened bc vague spoilers, yes its 2nd person again ok i am always on my bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25197631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughteroftheCosmos/pseuds/DaughteroftheCosmos
Summary: "The wind is not kind, and the beach is not kind, and the seas before you look even less so. They look angry, full of rage and fury, and you take a moment to shudder for any sailors caught on their choppy crests. But even so, your feet remain firmly planted to the beach beneath you, and the sands grant you stable purchase. Tonight is not the night you falter. Tonight is not the night you fall."
Relationships: (past), Poseidon & Zolf Smith, Readers Choice, can be read as platonic or romantic - Relationship
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	turn around

**Author's Note:**

> thank you friends for bapping me to finish this (you know who you are), and for the inspiration to start the fic in the first place! it was a lot of fun to write and to put myself into the head of an angry zolf. comments and kudos are always appreciated, and i hope you enjoy!

You know what a knife cuts like; you know its deep, clinical sting, and so you can’t say it cuts like a knife when you step out onto the rocky beach. Bites, maybe. The wind bites. Bites at your face, your hair, your skin. Bites with chill and salt and sand caught in its gust. You shield your eyes against it as you take careful steps down, closer and closer to the water’s edge. Rocks and pebbles shift and tumble under your feet, and despite your care you come close to tripping more than a few times; this is not a kind beach, but a kind beach is not what you came here to find. What you came here for draws ever closer with each stumbling stride, and you graciously allow yourself to be irritated at the effort for a few moments before resigning it to necessity. He  _ would _ make it difficult. 

The wind is not kind, and the beach is not kind, and the seas before you look even less so. They look angry, full of rage and fury, and you take a moment to shudder for any sailors caught on their choppy crests. But even so, your feet remain firmly planted to the beach beneath you, and the sands grant you stable purchase. Tonight is not the night you falter. Tonight is not the night you fall. 

“What d’ya want,” you state, calmly. It isn’t a question, not really. You can hardly hear the sound of your own voice over the raging wind, but it doesn’t matter. He can hear it. 

The water remains choppy and unresponsive. The wind remains cold and fierce, and you grumble as you tighten the fastens of your thick coat ever tighter. It’s  _ cold  _ and  _ wet _ and  _ dark _ and you’ve had quite enough of all three for several lifetimes. 

“What d’ya  _ want,” _ you state, less calmly, louder. The end comes out more bitter than it did in your head, and you wince internally. You’re not  _ desperate,  _ and in thinking that you realize that you may in fact be alone in that regard. The seas look angry and full of rage and fury and- yes, and full of  _ pain. _ Loss. Grief, even, and it almost makes you laugh. Pitiful, really. Just pitiful. 

But still the grief-stricken waters do not respond, and it sparks an anger in you that has become ever more quick to catch. Like magic the embers in your chest may burst aflame, and in the face of this great power you feel no fear; no, you do not fear him. Not anymore. 

“WHAT! DO! YOU!  _ WANT!”  _ you cry, and it is still not a question; it is a  _ demand _ , fiercer than the storm swirling around you, as if you still expect your rage to move him. But  _ he _ came to  _ you _ this time, invaded your dreams, took you from sleep and comfort, drew you here to this rocky grave, and he has the gall to- to what, give you the silent treatment? To be this petty? What were you really expecting, coming here? The grace of a god? Or the outburst of a child?

You pause a moment to breathe. You are still a cleric; not of him, but of your own, and you will not let your own rage become that which you condemn. In breathing, you notice finally the water gently lapping against your ankles. You can’t  _ feel _ it, of course, metal being not particularly conducive to sensation, but something in you makes you look down. The tide is suddenly, profoundly delicate, in stark contrast to the tormentous breeze, and it makes you angry before it makes you sigh.  _ This your idea of an apology? _ you think, and have to laugh a bit at the absurdity. 

The water inches forward. As if taking your silence as invitation, it breathes as tides do, but with every breath covers more and more of the metal of your legs. It builds slowly, carefully, giving you time to step out of the seas, to turn on your heel and make the treacherous climb back up the rocky shore and to the bluff, to abandon the waters and to never turn back. It breathes, and with each breath it waits. You do not turn around.

“This ain’t cause I feel bad for you, ya know,” you say, casual and light. “It ain’t because I’m sorry or sad, and I sure as hell don’t miss you.” To your mild surprise, the water seems to actually stop moving at your words, but you don’t care enough to note it. “It’s cause it seems like you’re finally willin’ to talk, and hell if I don’t have some things I’d like to say ta you.” 

The water tugs at your trousers, pushes at your heels, bids you walk on and past the rocky shore. It curls around the backs of your legs, and something in you shudders. Not at the sensation; there is none. But at the remembrance of sensation, at the faraway memory of water curling around your calf, back when you had at least one to your name. 

The water would tug at your trousers just like this, push at your heels just like this, and in holy reverence (and unholy amusement) you would follow as bid. You would follow their bidding, and the waters would leap and dance around you with the excitement of a child. Water is old, old as the Earth, old and vast and deep, but water is young, young as a sprouting thing, young as the rain that falls from far-off clouds, fresh and reborn. And water falls over the ocean, and so it is young, and playful. 

And  _ demanding, _ you would laugh, as you would wade until the water covered you to your waist. And  _ demanding, _ you would laugh at the currents as they would push at your clothes until you removed them. Until you would tip back, naked and chuckling, floating on your back on the seas at a dark beach not unlike the one you’re at now. It is the unkind beaches, of course, at which one can find privacy, at which one can be alone, at which one can worship, and be worshipped.

The water would lap at your sides, holding you aloft but not encroaching, never more. You never could decide the reason. Was it simply shy, as would be fitting with its playful, laughing nature? Was it offering you a choice? There were times when you would simply choose to lie on the waters, eyes watching the stars and the moon above, and the waters never seemed disappointed. But you aren’t remembering one of those nights- you’re remembering a night where you closed your eyes and the waters moved, where they brushed against your skin like a prayer. On those nights, you were as much a holy thing as the god you worshipped, as much a sacred thing as the lives you took in his name. You were not so foolish as to think you could  _ never _ drown, had experienced enough of the horrors of the sea to know that was a naive lie, but when the waters held you like you were something gentle, something precious- oh, on those nights, you believed that  _ he _ would never drown you. 

You finish remembering, and realize belatedly that you are quite sick to your stomach. The water is up to your waist now, and the waters tug at your clothes, and the sweetness of the touch makes you sick, sick. Who could have blamed you to think Poseidon knew? Who could have blamed you to think he cared? Who could have questioned how shaken your devotion became in the face of what he did? You thought he  _ loved _ you. You thought what you had felt in the water was love- but you should have known, should have realized the waters that touched you and made you feel holy were the same waters that tugged at you. Demanding. Playful.  _ Playing _ with you. There was no love in that. Only convenience. 

And with that, you remember yourself. With all the strength in your body, you drag yourself through the ocean back to shore. The water grasps at you with desperate fingers, but you shrug them off on your way. “I shoulda known,” you half-notice you are mumbling to yourself. “Shoulda  _ bloody _ known.”  _ You _ , you think.  _ What does he want? Just you. To have you.  _ But you aren’t anyone’s to have.

You make it back to shore, and the sand reclaims the weight of your feet as you step completely out of the ocean. Behind you, you can hear the waves grow ever louder, choppy and furious once more.  _ This  _ is Poseidon’s might, they seem to say.  _ This _ is Poseidon’s might, no more playing around, that was just a test and you passed, of course, they seem to say. But now you can turn around and face me, the real me, now you can return to me, the old me, now you can worship me, worship the salt and the seaweed and the vastness again, now you can turn around, now you can turn around turn around  _ turn around turn around- _

You do not, needless to say, turn around. 

Lives for lives, payment for services rendered. In your mind you hear the screaming of the people who’d  _ earned  _ it, you see yourself floating calm and peaceful near the shore, you taste bile in the back of your throat. He was playful like a fox, like someone who wants something. The kindest people always do. 

You hear it in the wind now, a whistling chat of  _ turnaroundturnaroundturnaroundturnaround,  _ and you allow yourself to laugh freely, loud and sharp and quick, and continue your merry climb across the wind-smoothed stones. 

“No,” you say, and it feels like its own kind of benediction. 


End file.
